Conquest of Spaces
by multishep
Summary: She believed Riven had died. Now that the exile has been captured and is sitting on death row, she wishes Riven were dead.


Katarina marches down the dark, deserted passage, grateful to be alone.

The complete lack of security beneath High Command does not surprise her. Unlike Demacia, Noxus doesn't have a guard stationed every few steps. Those who can defend themselves have no need for such employ, and those who can't, well, they are of no use to Noxus.

The torch she brought along lights very little of the way, but it's enough to make out the skeletons in the otherwise empty cells.

She isn't searching for a set of bones, though.

Not anymore.

The person she believed had died five years ago is very much alive. How High Command managed to find the former poster child is beyond her, and why the traitor was captured and not assassinated on the spot shouldn't concern her.

But it does.

Dead.

She wishes Riven were dead.

She'd already mourned and grieved; already accepted the fact that Riven was never coming home. She'd moved on with her life to do everything she could for her house and family.

If Riven were dead, she wouldn't be here, risking it all.

Katarina treads past dozens of more cells until, finally, at the end of the tunnel in the darkest of corners, she finds who she is looking for.

It's as if her heart stops beating in her chest when she spots Riven's long, silver hair. All the words she'd recited over and over again on her way down catch in her throat and threaten to choke her. She almost drops the torch when she grasps the bars between them, not trusting her knees in the slightest.

She thought she'd be stronger, _angrier_ once she meets Riven face to face. When the exile's boots met Noxian soil again, Katarina had promised something worse than hell. The feelings she abandoned years ago should have no power here, yet once again she's the only thing she's ever been before the silver-haired, amber-eyed warrior: _weak_. Riven hasn't even said a word yet.

The exile raises a shackled arm to shield her eyes from the light and Katarina wonders if Riven would come any closer if she could. Would she take Kat's hand in hers? Or would she reach through and try for her throat instead?

Riven doesn't let her visitor dwell on whatever thoughts she has any longer.

"Well? Are you going to say something?" she asks.

Kat snarls. Damn her. Last words, maybe, but Kat sure as hell doesn't intend to let Riven have the first between them. She doesn't deserve them.

"What makes you think I'm here to talk?" Kat counters through her teeth.

"If you weren't, I'd already be dead," Riven says simply.

"Don't act like you know me."

Kat is hard under the other woman's scrutiny, refusing to shift even as Riven practically strips her with unblinking eyes. The uniform she wears is just that; a uniform. But she knows it speaks volumes about her… about her alliances.

"You're right. I don't know you," Riven agrees, leaving the _'not anymore'_ bit to hang heavily in the air between them.

Katarina doesn't owe Riven an explanation, and she doesn't trust her voice to give one.

She knew what High Command had done, and she'd been nothing if not boundlessly _livid_, but what they did to Fury Company, to her _father_, could so easily happen again. She still has Cass and Talon to take care of. She had to do what she could to survive; to keep the political vultures from picking apart what was left of her shattered home.

To this very day they still circle her like sharks, hungry for a woman whose wounds never stopped bleeding.

Funny how the woman in chains is magnitudes more free than the one she is kneeling at the mercy of.

Still, Kat thinks her nothing short of a hypocrite. Considering where Riven spent the last five years, she also knows a thing or two about sleeping with the enemy.

"Did you love me?" she asks Riven, voice barely above a whisper.

Knuckles turn white as Kat's grip on the bar tightens. The jagged steel digs into her skin and she uses the pain as a distraction from her heart sinking to her gut when Riven doesn't reply immediately.

But eventually Riven does, even though it's with a smile that doesn't quite reach her eyes. "I did, very much."

"But not enough to come back."

There are only so many ways to say 'I'm sorry', yet she can't find the words and so settles with "I guess not."

Maybe once the hook of Katarina's dagger slices her throat the words can finally escape her.

"You're going to be executed tomorrow," says Kat, suddenly void of emotion.

Riven suspects she is here to do it herself before High Command can, though on paper the two are one and the same.

But instead of tossing daggers, the assassin reaches for something else.

The ring of keys she threw rattles and skids across the concrete to where Riven sits.

She's hesitant. Though a part of her was confident Kat would visit during her final days, she never expected to be let go. It's possible that Kat only wants to throw her into a game of cat and mouse before ending her, but still she takes the keys anyway.

"If they can find me once, they can do it again," she says, staggering to her feet and letting the chains fall.

"Then don't be so shitty at hiding next time."

"_You_ never found me," Riven mutters. She mirrors Kat's grip on the cell door, reading all the old lines of the assassin's face and memorizing all of the new.

Kat peels her fingers from the metal bars, opting for the collar of Riven's jacket instead. She pulls, slamming the other woman into the steel with enough force to rattle them. The torch clatters against the ground but doesn't go out.

"I thought I was looking for _a grave_."

They're both still, except for Riven's hand working at the lock awfully level with Katarina's hips.

Riven is freed from the assassin's solid grip only for a second. The cell door slides open and all in an instant, she's being pulled closer again.

Katarina's grip digs hard enough to bruise as she knocks Riven back against a wall.

"This is treason," Riven says, sucking back in the air that was forced from her lungs. It's all she says before leaning forward and pressing their lips together.

The kiss Riven gives her is _hungry_, a flux of love and hate. It's nothing at all like the broken charade she saw in the cell, and Kat grins through it all as her fingers tangle with dirty, silver locks. When Riven isn't kissing her she's forging bruises with her mouth and raising lines with her teeth. Her neck, her shoulders, Riven leaves no place untouched, unloved.

"They'll kill you if I run," she hears Riven say before the feel of fingers between her legs convinces her their escape can wait. When did Riven undo her buckle?

Something tells her Riven didn't need her help with the locks, but her suspicions are quickly shoved aside when a finger enters her, then another.

Her knees buckle and her moans are rewarded by strong shoulders lifting her legs off the ground completely.

"Not if you're dead," Katarina manages between shaky breaths. The torch she dropped has ignited enough of the straw bedding to turn the small prison cell into a funeral pyre.

Riven watches Katarina come with adrenaline in her veins and a fire in her eyes.


End file.
